


Olympusstuck

by CH_Ghost



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology, Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-14
Updated: 2015-05-18
Packaged: 2018-01-12 15:31:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1190343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CH_Ghost/pseuds/CH_Ghost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Homestuck AU where the session resulting in Earth's creation was played by 12 kids who would become known on the world they gained as the Olympian Gods.  Very much a work in progress, no idea how long it will be in the end or how often I'll be updating, but I have quite a few mid-story scenes written or planned out so I'm determined to create the full work for them to live inside.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Full Chapter One is now up! Next chapter will pop in on most of the minor Gods and hopefully have some in-person dialogue mixed in with these damn pesterlogs. (I like both styles of dialogue for different reasons so expect to see a combo of them through the fic)  
> ps - I did NOT realize until I coded the pesterlogs here that I made Zeus and Hera's text colors Erisol. Kinda fitting for their relationship though lol, now I'm afraid to check everyone else's colors against each other (I already chose all of them including the ones that haven't been in a pesterlog yet)

A young Olympian stands in his bedroom. His name is ZEUS, PRINCE of the planet OLYMPUS, and once again his royal duties have become UNBEARABLY BORING. While his education has centered on DIPLOMACY, COMMERCE, and other such areas required to rule one of the crown jewels of the Galactic Court, his true interests lie with METEOROLOGY. He is especially fond of the more destructive aspects of the science, such as THUNDERSTORMS and BLIZZARDS. He wields a mighty ENERGY WEAPON that has been fashioned to resemble a THUNDERBOLT as it strikes its target.

 

     Finally alone for the evening, Zeus scanned his room for something to take his mind off the tedium of another day of princely tutoring. As usual, he found nothing beyond his communication station. Scanning his list of contacts, mostly the children of other Olympian noble families and their allies in the Galactic Court, he settled upon his friend Poseidon as a good prospect to cure his boredom. Poseidon was the son of one of the Olympian military’s highest commanders, and was already a skilled warrior in his own right. He had an almost unnatural obsession with exploring the depths of the Olympian seas, and could always be counted on for exciting (if sometimes dubious) tales of the monstrous beasts and ancient artifacts hidden on the ocean floor. The Prince knew that Poseidon’s friendship had initially been offered in hopes of strengthening the chances of gaining his own command when Zeus took the throne, but what had begun as political posturing had quickly become a true and strong bond between the two young men. Indeed, so often isolated in the Olympian palace as the only child and heir of King Cronos, Zeus had come to consider Poseidon the closest thing he had to a brother.

\- - thunderCzar [TC] connected to abyssalTrekker [AT] \- -

TC: Poseidon! You around bro? Just finished with my classes for the day.  
TC: Did you get to go diving again today? Find anything interesting?  
AT: Ah, good evening my Prince. How fare you this fine day?  
TC: Hilarious. Really. If I wanted to be talked to like that I’d have stayed with my tutors.  
TC: Come on bro, I’m bored stiff, please tell me you have something to fix that.  
AT: Heh, sorry m’lord, you know I can’t resist.  
AT: And yes, I might have something to interest you tonight.  
AT: I finished transmitting the writings from those ruins in the Eastern Reefs to Hermes and Hephaestus.  
TC: The weird frog and lizard hieroglyphs in that old temple?  
AT: Yeah. Hopefully they’ll be able to get it transcribed into something our systems can work with.  
TC: Well if Hermes says they’re an actual language I guess we’ll have to trust him.  
TC: That dude could give half my father’s interpreters a run for their money the way he can mess with words.  
TC: What’s Hephaestus in on it for though?  
AT: Hermes thinks it might actually be some sort of extremely odd computer coding language.  
TC: So what, he turns all the flies and lilypads into 1’s and 0’s and then sees what happens when Hephaestus tries to code it?  
AT: That’s what I gathered his general plan was, if he’s right at least.  
TC: Just tell them not to go blowing up the planet or something if they get it wrong.  
AT: No promises, but at least their planet’s in a different system than us it they do.  
TC: Hm, true. Still, Roma is a mining world, Father would throw a fit if it were damaged by something we were involved in.  
AT: Relax, Zeus, I’m sure however disastrous it may be if they’re wrong they won’t actually damage the planet.  
AT: Plus, those two know what they’re doing enough to see something was wrong before it got to that.  
TC: Of course they do. Still, tell them to be careful.  
TC: We don’t even know where those ruins came from in the first place.  
AT: Will do, boss. I’ll let you know when I hear back from them. Hermes said they should have a rough idea of what it is later tonight.  
TC: Thanks, bro. Talk to you in a bit then.  
AT: Until then, my Prince.

\- - abyssalTrekker [AT] disconnected from thunderCzar [TC] \- -

     Zeus glared daggers at Poseidon’s parting shot. Unable to retaliate but not deeming it worth concocting a plan of revenge, he returned to his previous state of aimless boredom. As he considered the merits of contacting another of his friends, a tapping at the door of his balcony signaled the return of his pet eagle, Lightwing. He walked over to open the sliding glass door and was greeted by a rush of golden-brown feathers as the large bird of prey swooped into the room and dropped an object on Zeus’s bed before settling on his perch by the window. As Zeus approached the bed it became apparent that the delivery was a single, iridescent peacock feather. Zeus smirked and stroked Lightwing’s feathers for a moment, praising him for a job well done. He knew exactly where that feather had come from, and more importantly who he should contact regarding it. He moved back toward his comm station with anticipation and opened up a new message.

******************************************************************************************

Another young Olympian noble sits at her vanity, experimenting to find just the right blend of MAKEUP to bring out her perfect complexion and crystal blue eyes.  She is HERA, daughter of the Duke of the Western Seas of Olympus, and her sole ambition is to one day be QUEEN.  As a high ranking noblewoman, she has been well trained by her mother, aunts, and older cousins in the arts of INTRIGUE and MANIPULATION.  Should those skills fail her in a dangerous situation, she is also proficient with the numerous CONCEALED DAGGERS incorporated into each of her outfits.  She spends most of her time nurturing her ALLIANCES with other young nobles and keeping the attention of a certain Olympian PRINCE.

 

\- -  truthGatherer [TG] connected to cleverContender [CC] \- -

TG:  Athena dear, are you available?

     After a couple moments with no response, Hera sat back in her chair with a disappointed sigh.  ‘ _Probably has her nose buried too far in one of her books to notice the alert again,_ ’ she thought with a mix of annoyance and admiration.  Though she was part of the younger half of their little social circle, Athena was probably one of the smartest of the Olympian noble youths.  Not surprising, considering she had grown up on one of the colony planets that was home to some of the most prestigious universities and research facilities in the Galactic Court.  Hera had long ago marked her as an important ally for her future ambitions; at the very least she seemed likely to obtain a chief scientist position someday.  Or, if Hera could groom her properly to rule out any fears of betrayal, her quick wit had the fine makings of a royal advisor.

     A royal advisor, of course, was only useful to a Queen, and this was where the primary focus of her energies came into play.  Oh, she liked Zeus well enough with or without a royal title, but everyone knew that without the promise of a throne at his side very few would find the Prince a good long-term prospect.  For all his charm and charisma, he was also stubborn, arrogant, and extremely flirtatious.  While he seemed to return Hera’s interests enough to not try anything with the other noblewomen, she was well aware of his numerous dalliances with lower-class women around the palace district.  These, while an annoyance, were not a great concern to her though.  Olympus may have been the picture of equality in most of its forms for many lifetimes now, but class warfare still ran deep and a bunch of commoner girls and their bastard children would pose no threat to a noble-born Queen and her heirs.  All she had to do was secure Zeus’s allegiance - _love_ was far too fickle an emotion to be trusted for such purposes - and all the power and luxury that she so rightfully deserved would be hers.

     Enough of her daydreaming, though.  The only way to meet goals such as these was with precise planning and manipulation of one’s environment.  Speaking of which, her communication device had just informed her of not one but two incoming messages.  One was Athena finally replying, and the other…well speak of the devil.  Hera picked up her keypad with a smug smile and began responding to Zeus first.  Athena could wait until the latest round of this little game had played out.

\- -  thunderCzar [TC] connected to truthGatherer [TG] \- -

TC:  Good afternoon, Lady Hera  
TG:  Good afternoon yourself, Prince Zeus  
TG:  Though I do believe it’s closer to evening out in the Capital, is it not?  Come to complain to me about another boring day of classes?  
TC:  Ha!  It is, and it was rather boring, but I have a more…personal reason to message you tonight.  
TC:  Lightwing brought me something very interesting from his travels today.  
TC:  Care to guess what?  
TG:  Oh, that.  Your oversized pigeon showed up on my balcony around lunchtime today, I can’t imagine how he travels so far on his own power.  
TG:  He seemed ready to collapse until I had a servant find some meat for him, then once he recovered he kept looking at me in the most unnerving way.  
TG:  I gave him a feather from one of my peacocks to distract him so he wouldn’t take a liking to anything shiny in my room instead.  Don’t tell me he dragged the thing all the way back to you?  
TC:  He did, and whatever story you may tell me I’m sure you told him to.  
TC:  As for the distance, he’s got stamina to spare.  Takes after me you know.  
TG:  I’m sure.  
TC:  Come on, Hera, would it kill you to say what we both know you’re really thinking?  
TG:  Would it kill you to not go after some commoner instead every time I tell you no?  
TG:  I really am fond of you, Zeus, but I must say once again you’re quite terrible at properly courting a woman of my stature.  
TC:  Yeah, yeah, I know.  Nobility and airs and social graces.  You love it though.  
TC:  Otherwise you wouldn’t keep coming back for more.  
TG:  It’s simply not proper, my Prince.  What if someone from our families caught you speaking to me in such a way.  
TG:  Or worse, one of the lesser nobles.  It would be a horrible scandal on us both, you know!  
TC:  Yes, of course my Lady, you’re right as usual.  
TC:  Forgive me for my many grievous breaches of etiquette.  
TG:  If I must…  I suppose you’ll just have to make it up to me when I’m in the Capital next week.  
TC:  I do seem to be lacking a companion for that party the Twins are throwing…  
TG:  It’s barely making up when I was already going to that regardless of having a partner.  
TG:  Perhaps if you were to plan some sort of outing for us beforehand though?  
TC:  Consider it done, my Lady.  
TG:  I’ll look forward to it then.  Now if you’ll excuse me, Athena’s been after me as well and I’ve been dreadfully ignoring her.  
TG:  Good evening, my Prince.  
TC:  Good Evening, Lady Hera.  Give my apologies to Athena for distracting you.

\- -  truthGatherer [TG] disconnected from thunderCzar [TC] \- -

     Hera leaned back in satisfaction; that had gone better than expected.  Securing the Prince as her escort for Apollo and Artemis’s party had been her primary goal from the start, but he’d played into her hands so well tonight that she secured a more private outing on top of it!  _That_ should generate some interesting discussions among the nobility for weeks to come, and if she pulled the right strings she was almost certain she could make a significant majority of them positive.

     Another chirp from her comm device reminded her that she really was ignoring Athena at the moment, and she scrambled to reply to the girl.

\- -  cleverContender [CC] connected to truthGatherer [TG] \- -

CC:  Hi Hera, sorry, didn’t notice your message earlier!  
CC:  You still there?  
CC:  It says you’re still active, so I’m guessing you’re talking to Zeus again?  He’s the only one you won’t talk to the rest of us during a conversation with.  
CC:  Okay well when you’re done with him let me know, I promise I’ll pay attention enough to notice this time.  
TG:  So sorry Athena, yes, I was talking to Zeus when you got back to me.  I’m free now.  
CC:  Good!  How’d it go today?  
TG:  Oh, the usual.  With so many of us watching his every move, it’s almost too easy to get him to do exactly what we want.  
CC:  Right.  And by ‘we’ you mean ‘I.’  
CC:  You know half the rest of us couldn’t care less about the politics of it as long as our friends are all well.  
TG:  Athena dear you know I appreciate that half of you all the more; I can actually trust that you think what we’re doing is right.  
CC:  Never said it’s right.  Just that it’s what’s best for everyone.  
CC:  Zeus needs to be controlled once he’s King, or at least counterbalanced, and you’re the only one strong enough both politically and personally to have a shot at doing it.  
TG:  Yes, well.  Nonetheless, I appreciate your efforts on my behalf.  
CC:  Any time, my future Queen.  
TG:  Alright then Master Strategist, what’s everyone else up to today?  
CC:  Not much, really.  The Twins have Demeter helping oversee party preparations for next week, so all three of them are a chaotic mess.  
CC:  Poseidon, Hermes and Hephaestus are working on some weird translation project, something about some ruins Poseidon found.  
CC:  And I spent half the day tutoring Ares in history and sociology, which is about as effective as trying to demolish a brick wall with a rolled-up newspaper.  
TG:  Sounds like fun.  Any word from Hades or Aphrodite recently?  
CC:  Nah, you know how they are.  Loners through and through.  
CC:  They did both confirm for the Twins’ party though so that’s something at least.  
TG:  Good enough, I’m sure we’ll hear from them in a couple days when we’re finalizing those plans then.  
CC:  Yeah.  I’ll let you know if I hear anything else from anyone.  For now I’m going to get back to my reading if you don’t mind.  
TG:  Of course, thanks again for everything Athena.  
TG:  Oh and Zeus said to say hello as well, I may have used getting back to you as an excuse to cut him off earlier.  
CC:  Also not surprising.  I’ll talk to you later then!  
TG:  Alright, have fun with your books.  
CC:  Thanks!

\- -  cleverContender [CC] disconnected from truthGatherer [TG] \- -


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Introducing the majority of the other Olympian kids here, including everyone from the mining colony Roma. One more chapter of introductions to go! I'll be at Anime Boston this weekend so expect to meet Poseidon, Athena, Ares and Aphrodite sometime toward the end of next week (if I can get back into this writing flow once I crash for a couple days from con withdrawal)!

Far from the bubbling pot of noble ambition that is the Homeworld, another Olympian youth silently watches the dramas of his peers unfold.  He is HADES, son and heir of the businessman whose corporation first exploited the VAST WEALTH hidden in the depths of the colony world ROMA.  Since his youth he has had a rather MORBID FASCINATION with the subjects of DEATH, FATE, and the INEVITABLE MARCH OF TIME.  Like all Olympians his early life included training in various forms of HAND-TO-HAND-COMBAT, but instead of a weapon he chose to augment these skills with stealth via an ENCHANTED HELM with a CLOAK OF INVISIBILITY attached to its nape.  It is his philosophy that only with the proper KNOWLEDGE can one escape destiny, and therefore the foe that cannot be SEEN is the least likely to be stopped in time.

 

     Hades pulled his cloak tighter as he made his way down into the bowels of the planet.  Years before his birth, Hades’s father Kreios had done a survey of the newly charted world and discovered vast deposits of industrial-grade metals within the thick crust of the planet’s larger landmass.  Roma was the perfect mining colony - aside from one wide band of grey ocean, which nearly encircled the globe north-to-south splitting the land into two slightly unequal masses, there was little water to speak of and almost no native ecology.  The land could be and was exploited with impunity.  Now, as Hades neared his 18th year, almost a third of the accessible resources had already been mined out.  When he had reached 15, though, his father had made a strange request of him.

     It was no surprise upon a high-ranking Olympian’s fifteenth birthday to be given a Task, usually in order to provide a challenge and show one’s potential to the family’s allies and rivals alike.  Hades’s Task, though, was more long-term in nature.  Hidden in his father’s initial survey of Roma was the fact that the smaller landmass was not simply lacking resources, but had long ago been stripped of them in a similar fashion as was being done to the larger now.  The current operations demanded all Kreios’s attentions, but he trusted none to explore the empty caverns left behind for fear of another claiming some ancient prize in his absence.  Until now, that was; Hades would be given whatever he required to safely and efficiently survey the area and receive a fair share of credit for anything that he discovered.  His first forays into the dark shafts had been unnerving, but fruitful.  Once cleared of ore the mines had become a vast maze of hideaways for whomever had once controlled them, and the Helm of Invisibility had been Hades’s first major find in one of these forgotten vaults.  He claimed it as his own for the purposes of safer exploring, and soon delivered many more strange and wondrous artifacts to his father in return.  Soon these explorations became his passion instead of simply his Task, and they continued to the present day.

     Passing into a large, open chamber, Hades heard a low growl issue a challenge from the shadows.  “Stand down, Cerberus,” he commanded in calm, rippling bass tones.  Another growl and a large creature emerged to walk at his side.  Cerberus was his other great discovery, a construct of rock and metal engineered to appear almost perfectly as a beast of living stone.  He stood a foot taller than Hades’s already above-average hight, a broad-chested canine with three fang-sneering heads that surveyed their surroundings through ‘eyes’ of glinting red gemstones.  He had been the first and only true threat Hades encountered in his explorations, and he’d been forced to retreat and obtain a few weak EMP grenades in an effort to subdue the construct without damaging it beyond repair.  That gamble having succeeded upon his return to the beast’s lair, he called in Hephaestus, whose own father was one of Kreios’s top men, to help him rebuild the creature and make it obey him.

     The strangest thing was that whatever Cerberus originally guarded was long gone.  His lair had obviously once been a command center of some sort, but most of its tech was removed and the surrounding area was nothing special as far as Hades could tell.  It now served as his home-away-from-home, and aside from his occasional communications with Prince Zeus and his noble underlings the isolation suited him just fine.  For Hades had one more secret up his sleeve that even his father didn’t know about.  Whenever he physically approached another person, his mind conjured an image of their death.

     The images were rarely detailed, usually only a split-second flash, and especially among his father’s wealthy peers were often quite boring.  More often than not an elderly man or woman lay sick in a medical facility surrounded by loved ones, or peacefully slept in an elegant bed or chair before their life slipped away, but the frequency of the phenomenon was unnerving regardless.  The only exceptions were the Prince and his strange little entourage; instead of the same, mundane death every time they met, Hades always saw strange and new visions when he came into contact with them.  It was almost as if they all were fated to live and die together many times over, the playthings of a Fate finally given in to madness.  And sometimes, in the midst of them all fighting and falling against some strange beast or cosmic disaster, Hades would see the one death that had always eluded him - his own.  That alone was enough to intrigue him and keep him from shutting these strange youngsters out like he had everyone else.

     _Speaking of which_ , he sighed in resignation as he booted up his computer systems.  He really should find out what was going on with that ridiculous party the Twins were throwing and whether he would need to chaperone the others from Roma when he traveled to Olympus next week…

************************************************************************************

On the other side of Roma, another pair of Olympian children work feverishly on a project of questionable importance.  Poring over countless pages of AMPHIBIOUS HIEROGLYPHS is HERMES, prodigal son of Roma’s COLONIAL GOVERNOR.  At the age of only THIRTEEN he has already matched and then SURPASSED his own mother’s DIPLOMATIC SKILLS.  He is incredibly cunning and possesses an almost limitless ability for LINGUISTIC MANIPULATION.  While his training has only recently begun, he shows much promise with a combat style using energy-focusing weapons such as WANDS to keep the upper hand from afar.  
Watching him work with endless patience sits HEPHAESTUS.  Close friends practically since birth, they grew up on Roma together after Hephaestus’s father was appointed CHIEF ENGINEER of the planet’s resource excavations.  He also takes after his guardian, though not with quite so much aplomb as Hermes; he is however already a skilled COMPUTER CODER, and is quickly picking up the art of BLACKSMITHING to create both the technical components he lacks and more ancient crafts such as personal WEAPONS and ARMOR.  His trusty HAMMER is his tool both in the forge and on the battlefield, and he wields it with equal skill in both.

 

     Hephaestus caught himself staring at his clock once again as Hermes wandered back and forth around the large workbench that took up the theoretically open space in the center of his spacious quarters.  Normally covered with electronic bits and pieces from whatever he was experimenting with, it had recently been taken over by his friend’s myriad of printouts and handwritten notes as he pored over them in a seemingly random pattern, often shifting and rearranging them, making new notes, and muttering to himself in multiple languages all the while.  Hephaestus knew better than to interrupt the boy’s train of thought during a project like this, and he usually enjoyed watching other people work at things they loved, but this had been going on for well over an hour now and he could no longer understand even what little he initially had of what Hermes was actually doing as he bounced around the bench.  He turned to his secondary computer terminal - the primary was busy running a few analyses of its own on the scans Poseidon had sent over - and pulled up Poseidon’s contact info to make a status report.

\- -  temperedTechnician [TT] connected to abyssalTrekker [AT] \- -

TT:  Hi Poseidon, just wanted to check in.  Still nothing to report yet.  
TT:  Hermes seems to be finding a few things that he’s making progress on though.  
AT:  Anything specific?  
TT:  Not sure.  He’s not actually talking to me.  But speaking random languages while he works is usually a good sign for him?  
AT:  I’ll take your word for it.  Keep working on it, I told Prince Zeus what we’re up to and he’s impatient to see what comes of it.  
TT:  I promise to work as fast as I can if Hermes reaches a point where he can give me something to do, sir.  
AT:  Good man.  Just make sure you kids don’t work too hard or get yourselves in trouble.  
AT:  ALL our parents would have my hide if something happened to you guys because of this.  
TT:  Alright.  I’ll keep an eye on everything and if nothing else I’ll message you when we’re calling it a night.  
AT:  Thanks.  Talk to you soon.

\- -  abyssalTrekker [AT] disconnected from temperedTechnician [TT]  - -

     Hephaestus was about to check on Apollo and see how things were going at that end of the group when another message suddenly appeared on his screen.

\- -  ghastlyTombs [GT] connected to temperedTechnician [TT]  - -

GT:  Hephaestus.  You and Hermes are traveling to Olympus for Artemis and Apollo’s birthday, correct?  
TT:  Um, hi Hades, yes, we’re both going.  
GT:  Good.  Will you be using one of Hermes’s mother’s shuttles, or should I requisition a ship from my father for us all?  
TT:  I…think we should be alright?  
TT:  You’re welcome to join us if you don’t want to go to the trouble of getting another ship.  
GT:  Father does appreciate efficiency.  I’d expect no less from his Chief Engineer’s son.  
GT:  Yes, I believe I should be able to travel with you.  I’ll meet you two at the spaceport the morning of our departure.  
TT:  Alright…  See you then, Hades.

\- -  ghastlyTombs [GT] disconnected from temperedTechnician [TT]  - -

     Hephaestus sighed.  Hades was a good guy and always kind to the two younger boys, who were his only upper class peers on this colony world, but his text communications were so direct and awkward that Hephaestus found himself far more flustered talking to him online than in person.

     “Hephaestus, come look at this!”  Hermes’s call interrupted Hephaestus from speaking to any more of their friends.  “I think I’ve got it!”

     “I’m coming, I’m coming,” he grumbled a bit at his friend’s almost desperate enthusiasm.  “What have you got?”

     “Look here,” Hermes pointed at a couple of the hieroglyphic scans.  Hephaestus looked and saw a series of clearer, more distinct swamp-related pictographs than the majority of the ruins seemed to hold.  “Look closely at the first couple.  Do you notice anything special in them?”

     Hephaestus stared.  The first of the sequence was a large frog.  The second a patch of reeds.  He stared at the frog, trying to see what Hermes was talking about, then suddenly - “Is that a letter ‘A’ inside the frog’s eye?!”

     “Yes!  Yes, I think it is, I know it is now that you saw it too!  And in the top of the third reed from the left, see it?”  It took a bit of amplification with a handheld magnifier, but where Hermes pointed there was a distinct ‘B.’  The two scanned deeper into the subsequent glyphs, and while they weren’t quite in the proper order every glyph contained a different hidden letter or number of the Olympian written language.  Hermes quickly grabbed another scan and started transcribing the symbols.

     “It doesn’t make much sense written out,” Hephaestus mused as he looked over a wall’s worth of translation from the main temple moments later, “But there are some recurring elements that might fit into a couple of the old Arnian coding languages.  Let me get out the references I have for those and start plugging some things in.”  He was growing more excited now.  The revelation that someone or something had known modern Olympian at the time of the ruin writings and left a hidden key within them made it very likely that there was a real purpose to all this.  He cracked his knuckles and got to work on his main terminal; he couldn’t wait to have something to show Poseidon from all this!

************************************************************************************

Back on the Homeworld, a Lady attempts to guide her two young charges to the path of wisdom with little success.  This Lady is DEMETER, another confidant of Hera’s and heir of the Countess of the Southern Plains.  Having grown up in the ruling house of the AGRICULTURAL region of the planet, she constantly fights to balance the relaxed nature of her people with the precise courtly manners her friends display (at least in public).  Though she abhors violence, years of intensive GARDENING have made her quite adept with a SICKLE and similar tools should she ever need to defend herself.  
Her aforementioned charges are the TWIN TERRORS of the Northern Wood - ARTEMIS and APOLLO.  Approaching their FIFTEENTH BIRTHDAY, the twin siblings have been given the Task of organizing their own birthday party where they will be FORMALLY PRESENTED to the collected Nobles of Olympus and the prime colonies as the Count and Countess Northern Wood’s heirs.  Between them they have happily split the duties that accompany these courtly titles - Apollo is a child of DAYLIGHT, loving to TRAVEL and mingle with those who share his myriad interests such as noteworthy ARTISTS and HEALERS; Artemis on the other hand favors the cool MOONLIGHT, running alone through the WILDS and taking upon herself the title of HUNTRESS as she clears the vast wood of any dark creatures that may threaten her realm.  The twins carry with them a pair of BOWS, Apollo’s GOLDEN and Artemis’s SILVER, with quivers of the finest crafted arrows to match.

 

     “So Demeter, what do you think of this menu?” Artemis asked as she shoved yet another datapad at the older girl, this one emblazoned with the logo of the catering company the old Countess had suggested to her.  Demeter stared blankly at it for a second before picking it up and scanning the items Artemis had chosen.

     “I think it looks alright?” she ventured tentatively, “Maybe a tiny bit heavy on the sugary items, and you really should have a couple more things that aren’t fried appetizers during the traditional salad course, but other than that everything looks fairly balanced.”

     “I meant the _food,_ Demeter,” Artemis sighed dramatically.  “I don’t care if it’s balanced, how does some of this stuff _taste_?  Surely if the Countess recommended it you’ve had some of it a few times?”

     “Oh,” Demeter replied.  “I really wouldn’t know, Artemis.  Food is my entire region’s specialty.  Everything that comes from anywhere with a half decent reputation is usually wonderful.  But the Countess holds events so rarely these days that the food is hardly the most interesting thing to me when she does.”

     “Cut her a break, sis,” Apollo chimed in.  “She’s right, anything from a caterer from the Southern Plains is gonna be just as good if not better than anything the local nobles are used to.  I’m more concerned with the seating.  We want mingling, not honor duels, and who better to unravel all these silly Noble alliances than a friend of Hera’s?  No offense, Demeter.”

     “Oh, none taken,” Demeter laughed, handing the menu back to Artemis and taking the datapad Apollo offered in it’s place.  “The Countess is a crafty old thing herself, and anything she didn’t teach me about court intrigue I think I’ve gotten a crash course in ever since Hera started all her scheming a couple years back.”  She scanned the seating arrangements Apollo had put together with a mostly approving eye.  It was true, ever since Countess Rhea had taken Demeter in as a little girl she had revealed to her new heir a great many secrets and old ways of the Olympian court that were still jealously guarded by the senior nobility.  At only 17, Demeter had a unique position in the court and Rhea had used her youth and the other chief nobles’ tendency to dismiss her to her advantage over the years.  All too often a rival would let slip a word or phrase that would mean nothing to the other children, not realizing that Demeter knew exactly the code being used and what secret information to bring back to her matron as a result.  Unfortunately, this also meant that all too soon the old Countess’s health would deteriorate and Demeter would have to succeed her, becoming the youngest governing Lady of the court by far.  Duties such as assisting the twins here were as much an ongoing test of her knowledge and abilities as they were a strategy for strengthening Demeter’s bonds with the other noble houses before that time came.

     “Well?” Apollo’s query broke into her increasingly morbid thoughts.  She really had to stop doing that.  “What do you think?”

     “It seems well thought out,” Demeter replied, “”Or at least you got lucky with most of it.  One thing here though, I know Poseidon’s father and King Cronos are good friends but it’s not proper during a time of peace to put a military leader on the King’s side.  Switch him with…ah, perfect, the Countess here.  That way he’s only a couple seats down the head table from him but at a proper distance for peacetime; the Countess is technically a secondary host to your parents for this event so nobody will argue with any of them being directly at the King’s sides.  And, after ten minutes of those two louts calling back and forth over her she’ll probably offer to switch with the General into your original seating plan anyway with no loss of face to anyone.”

     Apollo gaped at her for a second before punching a few notes into his device.  “See Dem, this is why you’re the perfect heir for the old Countess.  She’s got you thinking like her and everything.”  Demeter allowed herself a small, sly smile at his praise and continued with her remarks on the placings of a couple of the other minor nobles at the lower tables.  Since the whole party was primarily in their honor, she’d let the twins get away with setting themselves and their friends at a slightly less ornate mirror of the High Table across the banquet hall from the King and their various guardians.  Let them have one last formal event all together like this, she thought wistfully, before she, Hades, Zeus, Hera, Poseidon and Aphrodite all came of age next year and had to start officially fulfilling their adult duties to their houses instead of lounging with their friends at the ‘kids’ table’ as some of their guardians teasingly called it.

     “You’re thinking too much again, Demeter,” Artemis said to her friend with a worried look.  The girl had a frightening knack for sensing the emotional state of others, though she and Demeter were close enough now that she didn’t really need it where the Southern heir was concerned anymore.  “Don’t worry yourself so much, this _is_ a happy occasion, remember?  Our birthday and all that?”

     “Yes, yes, you’re right,” she conceded.  “Time just seems to be going by far too fast for my liking these days.”

     “Wait ‘till your birthday to sound like that,” Apollo teased.  “And in the meantime help us rig ours to be as much fun as we can get away with!”

     Demeter nodded and launched herself into the next round of the twins’ unresolved planning.  Either way, it really was going to be quite the party.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait, everyone! Aphrodite decided to be an inscrutable pain in the ass and I spent more time getting her backstory and current doings to line up with everyone else than the entire rest of the chapter. But intros are officially DONE, and the next couple chapters will be all about fleshing out everyone's situations and relationships with each other before we really get things going!  
> (If you're not a Homestuck you'll be so lost by the end of this chapter I don't feel too bad 'spoiling' the fact that the Homestucks all know these intros are setting up a nice picture of imminent death, destruction, and chaos for poor Olympus soon)

On a secluded waterfront not far from the Capital, POSEIDON relaxes in the salty sea air while he waits for his friends’ report. As the son of ATLAS, the Olympian General in charge of the HOMEWORLD DEFENSE FORCES, he enjoys a place among his people’s socially elite youths that most other military officers’ children miss out on. He has always been drawn to Olympus’s OCEANS, which have been largely ignored for generations, and he spends most of his free time exploring them with the help of special DIVING EQUIPMENT he had commissioned as his reward for completing his fifteenth birthday Task. His weapon of choice is a TRIDENT, the favored close-combat tool of an aquatic race his people have recently allied with, but despite the many STORIES he tells his friends most of the creatures in Olympus’s seas are far too docile for him to have to use it often.

     Poseidon kicked his feet idly in the water that lapped against the rock outcropping on which he sat. This was one of his favorite spots along the coast just east of the Capital; for a good mile or so sheer cliffs rose out of the ocean a couple hundred feet tall, with barely a yard or two of rocky shallows at their base before the continental shelf dropped off into the deeps. He had scouted out several little perches like this one where he could sit and observe the various deep-sea life that rose up out of curiosity to investigate the edge of their realm. At the moment one of his more frequent visitors, a giant squid, was jetting back and forth along the edge of the cliffs while a pod of dolphins cavorted in the sunset further out in the water. He contentedly watched them for a long while before a ping from his portable, waterproof computer brought him back to reality.

\- - grandioseApollo [GA] connected to abyssalTrekker [AT] \- -

GA: hey man, gotta make a couple changes to the seating plan for the party, thought you should know  
AT: Are you ever going to change that ridiculous comm ID?  
GA: probably not. anyway, your dad can’t sit next to the King, Dem’s orders  
GA: and since we’re setting up our table to mirror the High Table, that means i gotta move you too  
AT: I didn’t even know you were planning it that way or I’d have told you it was wrong myself.  
GA: yeah, yeah, Dem already told me. your dad can’t be near the King unless we’re fighting someone  
GA: so now he and you are the middle of a side instead of by the center  
AT: That’s fine. The formal dinner is only an hour or so, then everyone will move around anyway. Who’s with me now?  
GA: you’re between Hera and Athena  
AT: Is it too much to hope Zeus is on Hera’s other side to distract her?  
GA: unfortunately, sorry. Dem’s between them  
AT: You know, we all have a completely different dynamic than our guardians.  
AT: I understand you want to make a statement, but the pattern I’m seeing here is likely to end badly on our side of the room.  
AT: And that will definitely not make the statement you’re after.  
GA: nah, it’ll be fine. the worst wild card is sticking Aphrodite at the end with Hephaestus  
GA: but there’s nothing to be done. she’s the only one whose guardian won’t be here. she can wait out flirting with you and Ares till after dinner  
AT: Still. If her father were here he’d be at the High Table and Hephaestus would be the one pushed aside.  
AT: Not that I wish it on anyone, but he’s technically the lowest ranked.  
GA: hey, i’m already pushing my luck making our table even-numbered so nobody gets bumped  
GA: she should just be glad nobody makes a fuss about us keeping her in our ranks in the first place  
AT: I know, I know. I just hate when politics get in the way of us having a good time on our own terms.  
AT: The whole thing isn’t right and you know it.  
GA: well as long as she hangs in ‘till Zeus gets the throne she’ll be ok. ‘till then we keep playing our cards right and hope nobody questions us  
AT: I really don’t know whether I should be confident or frightened about the Empire’s future if we’re all the ones who are going to be in charge someday.  
GA: oh definitely afraid. it’ll all work out though. remember we should all be at least a couple decades smarter by then  
AT: One can only hope. Go ahead and finalize the seating then, I’ll suffer Hera and Athena’s gossiping if I must.  
GA: thanks man. see ya next week  
AT: Looking forward to it. Say hello to Demeter and your sister for me.  
GA: will do. later

\- - grandioseApollo [GA] disconnected from abyssalTrekker [AT] \- -

     Poseidon shook his head in resignation as he looked up to see if the dolphins were still there. Instead, he caught sight of a strange red shimmer in the sky - a small meteor, barely large enough to survive entering the atmosphere, had made it past the planetary defense grid and was now plunging through the sky out over the ocean with a high-pitched screech. He watched, entranced, as it impacted the ocean about a mile offshore, a thunderclap reaching his ears seconds later as steam rose around the impact site and a series of small waves began impacting the cliff walls. Poseidon took this as his cue to leave and, after quickly donning his diving gear and stashing his computer in his pack, jumped into the warm water and headed north to the spot where he knew a small path up to land was cut into the cliffs. Hopefully by the time he got home he would have a more definitive update from Hephaestus on the frog temple translations. He knew Zeus would be after him for progress soon.

************************************************************************************

High in the mountains of a distant world a beautiful young woman walks a snow-dusted path among tall, green-needled trees. The world is the Olympian colony planet GRECEA, and the woman is APHRODITE, ward of the local colonial governor. Her father had once been head of one of the most powerful lesser noble houses and chief scientist of the colony’s top research facility, but an INCIDENT about a homeworld year ago led to his disgrace and exile. Since then she has withdrawn from court life except events specifically for her close friends, as her EMPATHIC ABILITIES make her too uncomfortable around the majority of nobles who look negatively on her due to her house’s new status. With little hope of attaining her original goal of a position in the colonial government council, she has been training intensively with her QUARTERSTAFF in order to reach the skill necessary to become a private BODYGUARD. While it would have been invaluable in council debates, sensing others’ emotions can also serve her well in picking out any POTENTIAL DANGERS in a crowd for a potential employer.

     Aphrodite smiled as she walked higher into the pine forests. Though there had only been a light dusting last night, the snow was enough to muffle most sounds of the forest and give the whole area a calm, peaceful air. She couldn’t feel anyone nearby; these excursions into the high mountains were the few hours a day when her emotions were her own, uninfluenced by the throng of bustling bureaucrats and overly excitable researchers who frequented the central hub of the colony where she was now forced to live. She knew she should be grateful to Governor Oceanus for taking her in after her father’s exile, but she missed her father’s research facility where this sort of seclusion was the norm rather than a rare escape. The Governor of course had only made such arrangements for her at the pleading of his daughter, Athena. The two girls were not the best of friends in their group, but as the only noblewomen their age on Grecea they had developed a strange sort of bond that Athena had been loathe to give up when the rest of Aphrodite’s family returned in shame to Olympus to start rebuilding their power.

     Today’s outing was not for the purpose of training, however. Before his exile, her father had had a letter delivered to her in secret in which he gave vague clues to the location of a hidden laboratory outside the city. Some were easily interpreted by using her empathy to feel imprints of emotion that he had left on certain clues, knowing the nature and extent of his daughter’s abilities due to the fact that he shared a portion of them as well. Others were harder to decipher as they required knowledge of the Grecean wilderness that she had previously lacked. Her recent travels while training had filled in a lot of these gaps, and today she felt certain she would find the lab and whatever her father had intended her to find there. She scanned the nearby tree line for a certain trail marker, double-checked her notes, and continued on her journey.

     A couple hours later Aphrodite found herself standing before a door in the mountainside itself, carved into the wall of a secluded glade far from any of the typical paths through these woods. Her hands trembled as she reached for the smooth metal handle that stuck out of the grey, stone doorway. She wrapped her hand around it, pushed down the latch, and gave an experimental tug. Locked, of course. No matter - while he was a bit young for her tastes, her flirtations with Ares all too often granted her any small tokens she may ask for, no matter how odd. In this case, a small explosive device he’d sneaked out of his mother’s private armory. She hooked it up to the locking mechanism and jogged for cover on the other side of the glade. A moment later, with a bang not as loud as she had expected, it detonated and she strolled over to easily open the now unlocked door.

     Upon entering, she looked around in wonder at the variety of monitors, displays, and strange equipment that hummed along the walls of a large laboratory. While the door had been camouflaged as mountainous stone, the lab was a clean, rectangular room with smooth metallic walls, and it was obviously still functional and in good repair. She walked over to the nearest display, a large monitor about three feet wide attached to the wall over a standard keyboard-and-mouse terminal, and cleared its screen-saver only to back away in shock. On the screen was a letter, clean black font typed on a white background with a timer ticking at the bottom.

“My Dearest Daughter,

If you are reading this message, you have finally deciphered my final letter to you. I am so very proud. The secrets of this lab are my legacy to you; you are about to play a vital role in one of the greatest challenges our people have ever faced, and it will be imperative that they are available to you when the time comes. Sadly, it is also imperative that you not receive them until that time, lest you try to avoid what is fated to be and doom your quest before it can begin.

I have bound all the computers in the lab to a simple ~ATH command. When the timer ends, you will understand everything. I am sorry that I will not be there to see it, but I have no doubt that you and your friends can rise to the challenge and triumph. Be strong, Aphrodite. Should you succeed, the reward will be beyond your imagining.

Ever Your Loving Father,  
The Seer of Heart”

     Aphrodite stared in confusion at her father’s cryptic message. ‘~ATH command’? ‘Seer of Heart’? These terms meant nothing to her, yet her father seemed certain it would all be quite important at some point. She glanced at the timer beneath his odd signature: in red glared the numbers 0,000,000,000:00:01:05:27:42. The final number ticked down once each second, so it seemed logical to assume the timer had one day, five hours, and twenty-seven minutes left before it executed, and had been counting down from…a number of years in the billions? That made no sense though. The year counter must have had some strange sort of placeholder, she concluded. After all, it couldn’t have been running for more than a few years at the most, less if her father had set it up right before his arrest.

     That aside, he had obviously believed that something of significance would happen tomorrow night. Grateful that she hadn’t missed it, she resolved to gather any supplies she could think of that might be useful tonight and return here tomorrow to prepare. For what she didn’t know, but if he was right then she’d be damned if she was going to let her father down.

************************************************************************************

Back in the Grecean central hub, a final pair of Olympian youths are just exiting a class on military strategy. The first is ATHENA, daughter of Colonial Governor Oceanus and close CONFIDANT of many other young Olympian noblewomen. Her QUICK WIT and FLAWLESS MEMORY allow her to store and make effective use of massive amounts of information on a wide variety of topics. Utilizing this, she has become an extremely talented TACTICIAN, and will someday happily employ this skill as either a political or military advisor, whichever serves her better at the time. Her weapon of choice is a SPEAR or POLEARM, armaments she specifically selected to counter the favored tools of her lifelong RIVAL.  
This rival, conveniently the same boy who walks at her side, is ARES. Ares’s mother is the commander of the colonial defense fleet, a crucial and top-ranking position in the Olympian forces. What he lacks in strategy he makes up for in FEROCITY, and he is widely considered one of the best warriors of his generation in physical combat. He favors the simple BLADE, training with all manner of swords and considering it an admission of his MARTIAL SUPERIORITY that Athena resorted to a weapon with longer reach to stay on par with him while sparring.

     “So Ares,” Athena teased, “Did the master swordsman absorb any of that tactical training we just sat through, or are you still just going to rely on me to point you in the direction of whatever needs stabbing?”

     “Why should I bother?” he replied in a bored tone. “If I have you to tell me where to go, all I have to think about is my own victory. Just because all the Generals are great warriors doesn’t mean the best warriors all have to become generals. Sit on the bridge of a flagship analyzing the fight if you like, I’d rather be the one leading the charge on the front lines.”

     “I suppose I should be thankful given your tactical skills,” she said, “But still, a little ambition wouldn’t kill you. Your plan won’t get you very far while the only fighting going on is defensive skirmishes.”

     “The Vriskaan are still out there, probably rebuilding. Don’t forget how my mother became commander here. I can do the same if they break through again.”

     Athena nodded, conceding that point to him. The Vriskaan were an invasion force whose primary strategy was to replicate and then destroy any form of knowledge their enemy possessed. Years before she and Ares were born, they had appeared in Olympian space without warning and invaded Grecea and two other colony worlds that housed multiple schools and research facilities. Ares’s mother Hecate, a junior officer in the small Grecean outpost at the time, had planned and executed an assault in which she led a small strike force right into the midst of the Vriskaan base camp, decimating their upper ranks with such ferocity that the entire invasion force abandoned the planet in a confused panic. Similar attacks on the other occupied colonies had also succeeded in repelling the invaders, albeit with much greater effort, and she was named a heroine of the invasion and promoted to her own command as a result. The initial Vriskaan attacks had set back years of research in dozens of fields, however, and the fear that they or another foe who had adopted their tactics would return had prompted the stationing of permanent defense fleets on the invaded worlds and two others with similar profiles.

     “Anyway,” Athena began again, “Have you talked to Poseidon recently? He had some project he was working on with Hephaestus and Hermes and I figured maybe he’d mentioned something to you as well.”

     “Not yet,” Ares said, “But Zeus mentioned it to me too when I was talking to him before our class. Everyone seems pretty interested in what it is I guess, but really what do you all hope a bunch of weird runes from a ruin will be worth even if they are translatable?”

     “That’s the point,” Athena huffed, “This isn’t something from Hades’s old mines or anything, it’s an entire temple on the homeworld that’s like nothing any of us have ever seen before. Unless the histories conveniently forgot to mention that we used to share the planet with giant psychic frogs or something, it could have come from anywhere and have anything locked away inside it. Maybe something that we can all share to gain power and influence way faster than we’re planning on now.”

     “Now you’re talking crazy, Athena,” he said with annoyance, “Half our group can only get more status than they have now by succeeding their guardians, and aside from maybe Aphrodite the rest of us are too young to get anything out of it unless we all agree to sit on it for years.”

     “I suppose,” she sighed, “I just hope it’s something interesting, even if we can’t get much out of it. It’d be a shame if Hermes did all that translation work for nothing.”

     “Yeah, well, I’ll try to get hold of one of them later. For now, I still have to punish you for that crack about class.” He gave her a challenging look as he turned down a path toward his mother’s private training grounds. “Feel like getting beat in another sparring match?”

     “Nah,” she grinned, “But I might be willing to let you win once or twice after I take you down a few times.”

     “Ha! Like that’s ever happened. Go get ready and meet me in the ring. Ten minutes or you forfeit!”

     “I’ll be there in five,” she called back over her shoulder. “Try not to get scared and run off ‘till I get back!”

************************************************************************************

     Hephaestus’s fingers flaw across the keypads as he input the last bits of translated data as readable code. Hermes had passed him the final set of translations moments ago and flopped on the bed beside his computers, lying silently and staring at the ceiling while he ‘put the words back where they belonged,’ as he’d once told Hephaestus he had to do after working on a translation project. He punched in the last of the code and set a series of programs to work organizing it into a workable program. Even translated into a language that he’d worked with before, the coding was almost completely inscrutable. It was filled with references to databases that didn’t seem to be accounted for, and looked to have elements of a game, a 3D design program, and a manufacturing overseer all running together as one. The fact that it had recognizable segments was encouraging, unless he was completely wrong about those, but as a whole he still wondered if it would turn out to be anything usable.

     A few minutes later, the computer pinged to alert him that the process was complete. In the center of the screen appeared an icon that looked like a yellow plus sign split into twelve small squares, with a triangle reminiscent of a roof on top. Below was a simple line of text:

Run Sburb? Y / N

     Hephaestus leaned forward with anticipation as he clicked the ‘Y’ and watched as a swirling green geometric pattern began to shift and change on an ever-warping background while a progress bar loaded below. When the bar was full the screen switched back to a black command-prompt style where commands began running automatically.

Skaianet is now active.  
Designated Incipisphere is currently in paradox stasis.  
Initiating stasis recovery………Recovery successful.  
Scanning local data network………All expected players found.  
~ATH dependencies in place.  
Activating trans-dimensional relay……………Relay not found.  
Please activate Skaianet within planetary range of trans-dimensional relay.

     Hephaestus scanned the prompts as they appeared. ‘Players’ was good, that confirmed that it was some sort of game, though who or how the players were expected was a potential concern. And then… “‘~ATH dependencies?’ Oh, no. Oh this is potentially very bad. At the very least it suggests something not good.”

     “What’s up now?” Hermes asked, popping up behind Hephaestus to look at the screen.

     “It’s a coding language of sorts, ~ATH.” Hephaestus replied, glad that Hermes had finally gathered himself enough to converse again. “It’s not commonly used. Very difficult to work with. You bind every command to an individual thing, living or non, with a finite lifespan, to execute upon that thing’s ‘death.’ In terms of living creatures, physical death, which is a very random binding to any point within a species’s average lifespan, depending on the individual you bind to. Something like a radioactive isotope, which has a definite half-life, or a star, which has a finite power source that can be fairly well calculated, are examples of more stable bindings. But regardless of what you bind it’s a very strange, difficult code with a lot of superstitions around it. I’ve never even found a proper way to learn it, let alone try anything with it.”

     Hermes shook himself slightly, ridding his eyes of the glazed look that always appeared when Hephaestus tried to describe technical information to him. He had a natural knack for people and communications, but not so much machines and electronics. “So this game-program-thing uses your weird doom-code then?”

     Hephaestus shook his head. “The main programming is done in normal coding just like anything we or one of our allies uses. Like I said, I based the platform off of Arnian code. But when it started up it made a reference to ~ATH in the initiation sequence. I guess it shouldn’t matter too much? Probably just a really long-life binding to keep something running while the code wasn’t active in a machine. It seems like it needs to be on the same planet as the temple to run properly - I think that’s what it means by ‘trans-dimensional relay’ at least - so probably something inside there.”

     “We should send the whole thing to Poseidon once you double-check it all then,” Hermes said excitedly, “He’s got a waterproofed computer, he can bring it right TO the ruins if he has to!”

     “Let me run a couple other tests first,” Hephaestus said, cautious now despite his assurances to the other boy. “But once it’s ready he’ll be the first one we send it to.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi all, so sorry for my long hiatus!!! Finally trying to make this story a priority in my life again, since I really do enjoy working on it immensely. That said, chapters 1-3 have received a few minor edits, mostly to fix a couple typos and add some references by name to certain guardians who may or may not be important later. Also, Chapter 4 is now complete! (never let me do a memo again, that was such a pain to code text styles for. Also I'm still not entirely sold on Artemis's text color but there are only so many presets to choose from and none of them seem entirely fitting for her...) Goal is to have Chapter 5 up in the next week or two at the most, so stay tuned! ^_^

     Demeter sighed quietly to herself as the small shuttlecraft touched down on the launchpad of Countess Rhea’s villa. Artemis and Apollo had thoroughly exhausted her over the course of the day, but she finally felt that the party plans were well in hand. With a gentle word of thanks to her pilot - respect and appreciate your servants and they will always support you in turn, Rhea always said - she rose and opened the side hatch of the shuttle. The air of the Southern Plains, warm and earthy-smelling after a day in the cool, still Northern Wood, filled her senses and she immediately relaxed as she drank in the comfort of her homeland.

     As she stepped down from the shuttle and toward the villa’s main building she could see Rhea emerging to greet her. Demeter smiled in amused resignation as the old woman bustled across the courtyard, as usual completely ignoring her attendants’ continual instructions to pace herself and let others cater to her for a change. The Countess was well-loved by her people, always brimming with vitality and displaying sincere interest in anything or anyone that crossed her path. She had worked alongside the local farmers at every planting and harvest since anyone could remember, and still showed no sign of sharing the concerns many naturally expressed about her health given her age. The work kept her young, she always said, and Demeter had to admit she could rarely find a compelling reason to press the issue. A few new lines on her face aside, Rhea seemed just as sharp and full of life as she did in Demeter’s earliest memories fifteen-or-so years earlier.

     “Finally home, my dear?” Rhea called out as soon as she was within earshot. “I hope you finally have those Northern Wood rascals’ party sorted out properly!”

     “Of course, my Lady,” Demeter replied, quickening her pace to avoid having a prolonged conversation shouted across the courtyard.

     “Good, good,” Rhea continued, finally slowing and lowering her voice as Demeter neared. “I won’t have my name being attached to any haphazard shenanigans. And do relax dear, there’s nobody here but us and the night servants.”

     Demeter smiled. “Sorry, Rhea, it takes me longer to switch off the proper noble act when I’ve been visiting the others.”

     “That’s better,” she teased as she started walking back toward the main house. “Come, sit with me in the garden for a bit and tell me all the little details while I watch the stars come out.”

     “Details about the party changes I had to make? Or just the gossip at Lord Helios and Lady Selene’s castle?”

     “Well the party, of course,” she scoffed in mock offense, “I just told you I have my reputation on the line here. Though I suppose I wouldn’t object if you felt the need to slip in a few relevant bits of intrigue. Whatever makes you happy, dear.”

     Demeter laughed as they settled onto the simple, comfortable bench Rhea kept amidst the evening-blooming flowers in her private garden. In the interest of making sure she had everything right, she did start by getting Rhea’s final approval on the banquet catering and a couple of seating arrangements about which she felt her knowledge was lacking. Then she launched into her real report - the small list of minor nobles who had been at the castle and what grievances she’d managed to overhear them airing to each other. She was thankful that the twins’ parents were Rhea’s closest allies and she hadn’t had to observe them and the goings-on of their castle as well; this report was quite long enough to have to give on such a nice evening after such a tiring day.

     As she finished answering Rhea’s questions about the day and looked up at the stars that were indeed visible now, a blur of light caught her eye. It had just been there for a fraction of a second, at the corner of her vision, but it was far too small and fast to have been a shuttle or even a messenger capsule. “Rhea,” she asked, “We aren’t due for a meteor shower, are we?”

     “Not until a couple weeks before harvest,” Rhea replied. “Why?”

     “I just thought - oh, there, another one!” she said, pointing at the southern sky.

     Rhea looked toward where she was pointing, adjusting her monocle. It was the only vision aid she would use, claiming in public that she simply looked terrible with glasses on all the time while confiding to Demeter in private that she enjoyed watching the other nobles squirm when she pulled out an archaic, traditionally male accessory every time she had to study an official document. In reality the side facing her eye contained a high-tech screen that not only adjusted her vision to any distance but provided any number of useful bits of information while those around her remained none the wiser. It had apparently been a gift from Aphrodite’s father, Prometheus, many years ago as thanks for Rhea helping pave the way to his appointment as chief scientist on Grecea.

     After a few minutes of them both scanning the sky and three more meteorites being spotted, Rhea suddenly stood up with a very businesslike demeanor. “Demeter, I need to go make a few calls about this. Be a dear and send the night servants home for the evening, then check in with your friends for me and see if they know about anything else strange going on.”

     “Alright,” Demeter said, confused. “Anything in particular I should be looking out for?”

     “No, no, it’s probably nothing dear,” Rhea said distractedly. “Better safe than sorry though. Off you go.” And without waiting for a reply she strode quickly toward the door and inside. Demeter followed hesitantly, stopping quickly at the villa steward’s office to let him know the Countess had noticed some strange occurrences and wanted all the servants safe in their own homes for the evening. She then withdrew to her own set of rooms and set to checking in on the others. As Rhea had said, better safe than sorry she supposed.

************************************************************************************

     Aphrodite had just reached home and slipped into a warm bath to relax after her day of ‘training’ when her datapad started pinging. She picked it up with a sigh. She’d hoped to spend this time preparing for her return to the secret laboratory tomorrow, but it looked like someone was starting a conversation in Prince Zeus and his young allies’ chat board. She usually remained a quiet observer in such things, but she didn’t want to miss anything important either so she settled in to read as the night’s topic of discussion unfolded.

\- - greenGuardian [GG] opened memo on board FUTURE LEADERS OF OLYMPUS - -

GG: Good evening, everyone. Please forgive the late hour, but I have an important question for you all, especially everyone on the homeworld.  
grandioseApollo [GA] responded to memo.  
GA: sure Dem, what’s up?  
GG: I was just out in the gardens with Countess Rhea and we noticed what appeared to be a few meteorites falling, even though we’re nowhere near the parts of Olympus’s orbit that typically produce meteor showers. She asked me to see if anyone else has noticed anything odd going on tonight.  
GA: i haven’t noticed anything, but ask Artemis. she’s the one who goes out at night  
truthGatherer [TG] responded to memo.  
TG: Nothing strange here, dear, but the sun is just starting to set this far west. I’ll keep watch for a bit once it does.  
GG: Thanks, Hera.  
argentCourser [AC] responded to memo.  
AC: I noticed them too, Demeter! Apollo’s right, I’m out in the forest now, and everything seems calm on the ground but there’s definitely been a shooting star or two in the sky every few minutes. They’re very pretty!  
AC: But we’re not due for them tonight? That is strange then…  
abyssalTrekker [AT] responded to memo.  
AT: I’m afraid I can confirm them as well. Demeter, tell the Countess that I witnessed one large enough to impact the surface slip through the defense grid.  
GA: whoa, really???  
AT: It was just before sunset, right after I talked to you, Apollo. I was sitting on the cliffs at the shoreline and I saw it fall about a mile out in the ocean. It wasn’t very big but it was enough to send ripples to the shore.  
thunderCzar [TC] responded to memo.  
TC: And none of you thought to tell me about this? Some bunch of advisers you’ll make for me.  
TG: Hush, Zeus, nobody knew until Demeter contacted us that it was anything worthy of note.  
AT: I would’ve told you about mine in a bit, my Prince, but I was compiling Hermes and Hephaestus’s notes on the translation project before I messaged you so I could tell you about that too.  
TC: Oh. Really? Sorry bro, what’d they find?  
GG: Translation project?  
AT: Hermes cracked the code of those hieroglyphs in the sunken temple I found off the Eastern Ridge.  
tunefulAscent [TA] responded to memo.  
TA: Yeah! It was really cool. I found modern Olympian letters and numbers hidden inside each different symbol and got it all transcribed, then Hephaestus plugged it into some old coding language he knew and it turned into a real computer program!  
AC: Really??? Hermes, that’s...  
TC: Incredible! So what does this secret frog temple program do?  
AT: We’re not really sure yet. Hephaestus is running some scans on it overnight to make sure it’s safe to run.  
AT: He tried it on his backup system on Roma and it seemed to indicate that it couldn’t finish setting itself up without being in close range of the temple.  
AT: Once he gives me the all-clear tomorrow I’m going to head to the temple and try it out.  
TA: Can’t wait to see what happens! But yeah, it’s really late here so I’m heading to bed. Talk to you all tomorrow!  
TA ceased responding to memo.  
AT: Yes, me as well, if I have to get all the way to the temple in the morning. Demeter, when you make your report to the Countess please also let her know that I’m about to inform my father of all our observations on the meteor shower. I’m sure he’ll put some extra night staff on the defense grid to look into it.  
GG: Thank you, Poseidon. I’m sure she’ll feel better knowing that General Atlas is up to speed on the situation.  
AT ceased responding to memo.  
GG: The rest of you get some rest too. Message me in private if you find anything to add to this.  
TG: Of course. Sleep well, all.  
GA: ‘night!

GG closed memo.

     Aphrodite took a moment to digest her friends’ words, then with a feeling of dread opened up a private message to the only other person who seemed unsettled by these new developments.

\- - adamantAllure [AA] connected to argentCourser [AC] \- -

AA: This is it, isn’t it Artemis?  
AC: Oh, Aphrodite, you were watching the memo?  
AC: Yes, I think it is.  
AC: The golden city in my dreams, the White Queen, the clouds of prophesy... All of them have warned of the things the others were talking about.  
AC: Are your dreams any clearer of late?  
AA: No, still just a blur of purple and shadows and hideous things twisting in the darkness. Nothing at all like what you’ve described.  
AC: The Queen said that made sense. That some of us were in a place of darkness and even those whose dream-selves woke would be bound there until the time came.  
AA: I found something today. It didn’t make sense when I saw it but now I think it does. I found the end of my father’s map, and it’s a hidden laboratory with all sorts of strange machines in it. And they won’t turn on until a timer reaches it’s end. That end is tomorrow evening.  
AC: Really??? Aphrodite you have to be there when it does.  
AA: I planned on it anyway. If it’s all part of your clouds’ doomsday scenario, all the more reason to.  
AC: I wonder... Can whatever’s going to happen really go down so quickly? I don’t know how we’re supposed to get out of it if it does...  
AC: And why couldn’t it wait until after our party???  
AA: I know, Artemis. I’m sorry if that’s really the case. But nobody gets much choice in their fates, least of all us if your dreams are correct.  
AA: Now go rest. Even you shouldn’t be out alone tonight. I’ll make sure Athena and Ares are prepared somehow before I leave for the lab tomorrow.  
AC: Alright... Just don’t go disappearing on us tomorrow. Everyone has to be in constant communication once whatever this is starts.  
AA: I promise. Goodnight, Artemis.  
AC: ‘Night...

\- - adamantAllure [AA] disconnected from argentCourser [AC] \- -

     Well that was that, Aphrodite thought to herself. Artemis had begun telling her of her strange dream-world many years ago at some prompting from the images in her golden planet’s clouds, and a long series of events too strange to be coincidences had finally convinced her that the girl was telling the truth. She didn’t relish the thought that this could all lead to her ‘dream-self’ finally waking fully in that dark place opposite Artemis’s, but at least it didn’t sound like she would be alone there if she did.

     With another heavy sigh, Aphrodite lifted herself from the bath and quickly readied for bed. When sleep finally took her, she found herself yet again gazing through clouded eyes at a dark purple chamber. A deep thrumming noise echoed all around her; this was also familiar, even soothing to her otherwise clouded senses. What was not familiar, however, was the dark shape looming over her. Her vision began to clear, just enough to see a feminine figure with a smooth, black carapace instead of skin and glowing white slits for eyes. An obsidian crown sat upon the figure’s head. “Shhh,” the figure whispered, her voice somehow melodic and harsh all at once. “Back to sleep now, Witch. Can’t have you running about before we’ve even started.” She reached out and brushed her cold, hard hand over Aphrodite’s eyes, and the girl knew only darkness until morning.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, as usual I'm awful at updating in a timely manner. Sorry about that, all. More to come soon, hopefully, but for now enjoy tormenting Poseidon! (Also, if anyone has a more elegant way to describe action while conversing in pesterlogs than this feel free to make suggestions. The limitations of not having images to go with the conversation really come out in this sort of scene...)

     Morning came without further incident for Poseidon. Upon hearing of the unexpected meteors, General Alas had returned to his flagship to check on the defense grid personally, and from the look of things when Poseidon got up he hadn’t returned home for the night. This wasn’t necessarily a reason for concern, as his private quarters on the flagship were an equally comfortable sleeping place as their mansion in the Capital, so Poseidon went about his morning routine and gathered his things for yet another expedition to the sunken temple. Checking his computer before he packed it up, he saw an automated message from Hephaestus’s computer indicating that all scans of the mysterious program had come back without error or known dangers of being run.

     “We’ll see about that,” he thought to himself as he grabbed his trident on his way out the door.

     The Eastern Reefs where the temple lay were a fair distance north of where Poseidon had witnessed the meteor strike the evening before, and nothing out of the ordinary presented itself as he traveled to it. A few fish here, a sea turtle there, but the monsters of the deep that he regaled the others with tales of were in truth extremely rare and even more so near the reefs. The temple sat as still and empty as it always had, greyish-green pillars surrounding a central tower with a giant frog carved atop it. An old volcanic vent rose from the seafloor nearby, a small mountain of black rock sitting ominously amid scattered outcroppings of rock and coral.

     Poseidon swam into the main entrance of the temple and settled his computer on one of the small pillars that rose from the ground. As he began to run the program, he saw the same swirling geometric shapes Hephaestus had described appearing on his screen. Once that had fully loaded, the command prompt he had described also appeared.

Skaianet is now active.  
Paradox stasis recovery successful.  
All expected players found.  
~ATH dependencies in place.  
Activating trans-dimensional relay……………Relay activated.  
Please connect to another client or server player to begin.

     As the prompt stated that it was “activating trans-dimensional relay,” the temple shuddered slightly. Poseidon looked around, ready to make his escape just in case the place started coming down around him, but instead he saw that the water at the temple’s ceiling was receding. Air filled the temple until the water was forced out, an invisible barrier holding it at bay just at the temple’s entrance. Looking back to the computer and seeing its next statement, he immediately opened a message to Hephaestus.

\- - abyssalTrekker [AT] connected to temperedTechnician [TT] \- -

AT: Hephaestus, it worked! The temple or relay or whatever activated, and now it wants me to connect to another player.  
AT: Also once it activated, it forced all the water from the temple.  
TT: Interesting. I’ll try running mine again. Give me a minute.  
TT: OK, it worked. And it says ‘connected to client player.’  
TT: Is that you?

     Poseidon glanced at his own screen, which now read: ‘server player connected.’

AT: Yes, it seems to be.  
AT: So what do we do from here?  
TT: Hold on, let me run the client program itself and see what comes up.  
TT: I… I see you! Is that really you? It looks like you, and you’re just standing in the middle of the temple with your computer on a pillar.  
AT: Yes, it is. Do you see this?

     He waved at a random wall in the room.

TT: Did…you just wave at the wall? If so my viewpoint is opposite where you turned.  
AT: Ha! Alright, let’s try that again.  
TT: There, that’s better. I wonder if the video feed is from the temple wall then?  
AT: Perhaps. But then how would the client work for anyone who wasn’t in the temple?  
TT: Not sure. Anyway, there’s a menu that lets me deploy some items. Let’s try it.

     Poseidon jumped in shock as a large piece of machinery appeared out of thin air and dropped on the ground along the wall of the temple. Well, at least there was nobody else here to see that loss of composure. Oh wait…

TT: Nice jump there, oh stoic soldier.  
AT: Never mind that. How did that just happen?  
TT: I don’t know. I just dragged the ‘totem lathe’ out of the dropdown menu and put it next to you.  
AT: Yes, and it appeared out of thin air just where you put it! Rearranging molecules is one thing but none of our technologies can materialize something even close to this complex from nothing!  
TT: Yes, obviously we’re dealing with something much more advanced than that.  
TT: Watch out, there’s a couple more machines for me to drop here.

     Poseidon looked around the room in dismay as two more large machines suddenly dropped to the ground with heavy thuds. A thick sheet of paper fell much more gently on the pillar next to the one his computer rested on.

TT: There, all done. Those are apparently the ‘cruxtruder,’ ‘alchemiter,’ and ‘pre-punched card.’  
AT: Wonderful. That tells me so much.  
TT: No need to get cranky, the game provided them, for free no less, so they must be important.  
AT: This doesn’t seem much like a game to me. You’re affecting reality itself, here! Nobody would just make a GAME this complex.  
TT: Well, there’s not much for us to do but experiment here, is there? The program doesn’t exactly come with an instruction manual, all the walls of the temple were taken up by the code itself!  
AT: Alright, alright, fine. So you can at least see the names of these things and such, what do I do first?  
TT: You can’t see any of it on your screen?  
AT: No, it just says ‘Server player connected. Please connect to client player.’  
TT: Hm, ok. Maybe you can connect to me and be able to see the same things from being my client player?  
AT: I can try. Give me a minute.

     As Poseidon set the client portion of Sburb, as the program called itself, to open, his attention fell on the pre-punched card Hephaestus had placed on the pillar next to him. It was a thick card with small rectangular holes punched through it at various intervals across its face, which seemed to display a beautiful blue lotus flower.

AT: So this card you gave me, it came in the same place as the three machines?  
TT: Yes, and from what I can see it seems like it might be connected to the totem lathe? I think there’s a spot you can put the card in on the side there…  
AT: Hm, alright, I’ll try that.

     Poseidon placed the card in the slot on the side of the totem lathe and attempted to decipher the controls. When he found what he thought should start the device though, a screen above the controls began blinking red with an image of a cylinder crossed by an ‘X.’

AT: That looks like a no. It’s blinking red and I think it needs something to put whatever the card is telling it onto.  
TT: Er… How about the cruxtruder then? if you can get that cap off the top maybe there’s something inside we can use.  
AT: Hold on then.

     He grabbed his trident and stuck its prongs into the space between the cruxtruder’s cap and the cylindrical shaft it was affixed to. Using the trident as a sort of lever, he pushed with all his strength at the opposite end of the weapon, but the cap wouldn’t budge. Suddenly a loud rumble shuddered through the temple and Poseidon was thrown to the ground; the extra weight of his body pulled the trident down and forced a crack in the cap’s seal, through which a flickering orb burst forth. On the side of the cruxtruder a screen lit up with a timer, which immediately began counting down from 12:00. 11:59. 11:58. Twelve minutes, then. But until what?

TT: Hey, what was that? Are you ok?  
AT: Ugh, yeah, I’m fine. What was that though? It felt like an earthquake or something…  
TT: I don’t know, I can try to zoom out on my screen…  
TT: Yes! I can see the outside of the temple now! It looks pretty much like the pictures you sent me, nothing out of place…  
TT: But the water looks darker than it should. Almost like smoke.  
AT: I’m going to check it out. Keep an eye on me.  
TT: Ok. Be careful.

     Poseidon ventured slowly out of the temple’s entrance, back into the water which was indeed dark with sand, or maybe soot, stirred up by whatever had just occurred. Looking out into the murk, he saw a fresh crater on the side of the volcanic vent which was now itself billowing black soot into the ocean around it. Another meteor must have gotten through the defense grid and impacted the vent, destablizing and reactivating the magma chambers below it! Poseidon looked on with dismay as a few injured sea creatures limped away from hiding spots around the mound of rock, including one of the giant squid he was always so fond of. He pulled up the secondary communication device in his watch to check in with Hephaestus.

AT: More meteor issues going on out here.  
TT: So I see… Did you notice that little glowy thing followed you out there?  
AT: No, I didn’t… That’s odd. I wonder what it’s for?  
TT: No clue. It seems interested in the volcano though.

     Poseidon looked at the orb, which was indeed chattering and weaving back and forth vaguely in the direction of the volcano and the fleeing sea life. “What is it?” he asked the thing, though he wasn’t entirely sure it was even capable of understanding him or communicating. “You’re part of this whole mess, can you fix this? Help them somehow?” The orb chattered more unintelligible vocalizations, whizzed around his head, and rushed straight toward the dying giant squid that was heading their way. To Poseidon’s dismay, though, rather than healing the squid the orb _fused_ with it, returning to him as a dark blue squid head with only its two main tentacles waving out of the orb’s sides. The creature jetted contentedly around him for a moment before waving him - in a disturbingly human manner - back toward the temple with one of its tentacles. Poseidon, mentally defeated for the moment, could do nothing but comply.

AT: This is getting beyond weird now. What even is this abomination I’m following?  
AT: If this mess can even remotely be considered a game I don’t know if I want to play anymore.  
TT: I don’t think we have a choice, Poseidon.  
AT: Like hell we don’t. We just shut both our systems down, I drown this temple again and we all forget we ever thought this would be a good idea.  
TT: ~ATH codes don’t work that way. The temple, the program, if they’re even separate things, both have ~ATH dependencies written into them.  
TT: That means they’re going to happen, no matter what.  
TT: If we don’t see this through, or even if we never worked the code out in the first place, I’d bet anything these meteors and everything else was going to happen regardless.  
TT: The ‘game’ is just the universe’s way of giving us a chance to fight it.  
AT: So what, we’re doomed either way? That’s so very encouraging.  
TT: Probably, yes. You should get back to those machines though, that timer has me concerned.

     Indeed, the timer was now all the way down to 4:13. Poseidon examined the tube at the top that the orb had come out of, and found that there was a wheel on the side which, when turned, caused a smooth blue cylinder to pop up out of the tube. This must be what the totem lathe was missing! He quickly grabbed the cylinder and brought it over to the lathe, placing it on the open platform and re-initiating the sequence he had tried earlier with the pre-punched card. The cylinder was almost immediately ground down to a strange geometric shape and the lathe shut back down.

AT: OK, I have this thing that I guess is a ‘totem’ now, so now what?  
TT: Well, the last thing we haven’t used is the alchemiter.  
TT: Go see if there’s a spot for it on there.

     Poseidon turned his attention to the final machine, and indeed there was a small platform about the size of the totem’s base to the side of the larger main platform. He placed the totem on it and the machine immediately whirred to life. It scanned the totem with a small laser-wielding arm, then a small, dark blue lotus flower materialized on the pad, its bulb not yet bloomed but seemingly about to. As the small blue lotus appeared, a large purple one also grew in the center of the temple, swallowing the pillar with Poseidon’s computer on it in the process! It immediately closed into a bulb as well, with a timer below it ticking down from 05:00. Poseidon glanced at the cruxtruder timer; it was blinking red now, at 00:25.

TT: So, did that work?  
AT: It did something, I’m not sure what though. The little blue lotus looks like it’s starting to bloom though!  
TT: That’s good. I think. I don’t know anymore.  
TT: Wait, your video feed is going all fuzzy. What’s going on? The timer should hit zero in a couple seconds.  
TT: Poseidon?

\- - abyssalTrekker [AT] disconnected from temperedTechnician [TT] \- -

     Poseidon watched, mystified, as the tiny lotus bloomed. It began to glow intensely as it reached its full bloom, and just as the timer on the cruxtruder ticked to 00:01, the whole temple shook and he felt an odd shift, as if he was on a ship that had just entered warp speed. Light, still dim but brighter than the shades of the deep ocean his eyes were accustomed to, began to shine through the temple’s door. He walked over to look out, only to stand yet again still in astonishment.

     “Impossible,” he said under his breath. Outside the temple there was no longer a sea floor, or any water at all. Instead the temple now stood on a sandy beach, waves lapping gently against it under a dim yellow sky and a warm, salty breeze blowing inside as the barrier that had held the water at bay dissipated. The seamount, still barren rock and smoking at the top, now loomed in the distance as a true above-ground volcano. In the distance, he could swear he heard frogs croaking.

     “Welcome, Knight of Space,” came a burbling voice behind him. Poseidon whipped around to find its source, and saw that the blue squid-orb had transformed yet again into a large, floating squid with two tentacle-arms and its eight smaller tentacles fused into a long tail. “Welcome to the Land of Tides and Frogs.”

     Poseidon, finally overcome by his steadily-building shock and confusion, promptly passed out on the ivory sand beneath him.


End file.
